Fangs (1974) User Reviews

Seek this out if you're looking for something a little different.

[capkronos · 6/10 · 9 July 2003]

Snakey Bender (played with offbeat charm by veteran character actor Les Tremayne) is a friendly, misunderstood eccentric psychopath who loses it after several strange characters push him over the edge. He decides to get even using his slithering serpents as instruments for revenge. FANGS (the name of the video I saw) refreshingly goes out of its way to be different, especially with an odd assortment of characters. A cheerful schoolteacher livens up her weeks by having sex with a huge blacksnake name Lucifer (shown in shadow). A redneck grocery store clerk and his obese lesbian sister try to seduce the teacher and kill one of Snakey's beloved pets. Snakey's former best friend, his much younger wife who's been cheating on him (Janet Wood), and a corrupt preacher (Marvin Kaplan) are other victims. He even keeps Wood tied to a chair and makes her watch as he kills everyone. Several of the murders (a hidden pit full of rattlesnakes, an interesting poisonous snake-in-a-barrel game) are bizarre and made even more bizarre because they're set to marching band music (!) The score of the film is actually credited to John Phillip Souza!

Score: 6 out of 10

Campy and Funny

[Jcole-8 · 6/10 · 27 September 2005]

I actually own this film. Why is a unique story in itself, but suffice to say, I found it to be a funny camp movie. Of course it's bad. It's made in the 70's with a $100 or so budget and employs all the locals around Oak Glen/Cherry Valley California. Hysterically funny every time Snakey drives the SAME CAR off the cliff and marches back to town. I am surprised this has not shown up in midnight movie houses complete with characters in costume.

Some familiar faces show up in this movie and while you've seen them before in bigger better flicks, there is no comparison for the "acting" job done here.

Why, doesn't every town in CA have an old codger who collects snakes from the local school children? Ya gotta love Snakey. Hey Snakes are people too!

Don't interfere with Snakey's Wednesday night agenda!

[Coventry · 5/10 · 26 November 2010]

"Snakes" is a peculiar and - in fact - very wrong 70's animal exploitation, but it's undeniably great entertainment. The film introduces Snakey Bender (Les Tremayne), a snake shepherd who traditionally visits every Wednesday a little town that is … um … rather fond of snakes. On these glorious Wednesdays, all the kids from school pass by his ramshackle car to look at the snakes, Snakey gets invited to the kinky school teacher's house for a bizarre sexual ritual with a big venomous cobra and – cherry on the cake – he has his weekly reunion with his pal the mayor to listen to old records and behave like idiots. You see, life's just fabulous when you're name is Snakey Bender. But then a series of unfortunate events occur and Snakey's status suddenly goes from being a popular town guest to being a despicable outcast. Under the influence of a deranged storekeeper and the local priest (who keeps exclaiming that all serpents are the devil's minions) everybody betrays Snakey and treats him like filth. He's not even welcome at the mayor's residence anymore, because that fat bastard married a sexually dominant wench overnight. It's a very stupid idea to upset a snake nut, obviously, as the deeply frustrated Snakey calls upon his slithery friends to extract some good old revenge. As you can tell, "Snakes" is a totally bonkers flick that never at one point makes any sense. I mean, it's an old dude going dangerously berserk simply because he isn't welcome anymore in a village that he only visits once per week? He turns into a cold-blooded killer (although he doesn't commit the vile acts himself) from one moment onto the other because they messed up his precious Wednesday routine! Awesome. Only in the 70's this sort of stuff could be produced. The premise of "Snakes" is vaguely similar to that of "Willard" (with rats) and "Stanley" (also snakes), but here there's less affection with the animal species in question. They all remain nameless as Snakey himself demands to stand in the spotlights. Purely talking in technical terms, "Snakes" isn't exactly a sophisticated effort neither. You can tell right from the bombastic opening sequences, with loud and immensely annoying marching band music that cheerfully keeps playing long after the opening credits are finished. There's very little gore, probably due to budgetary restrictions and the acting performances are (intentionally?) abominable. "Snakes" is exclusively recommended to exploitation/drive-in fanatics with a wicked sense of humor.

An Instant Classic

[joehed · 15 November 1999]

Ok well if you've come this far, you can't be expecting anything good. I can tell you this much though, I would file this movie under instant classic. Not a good movie, but there is something about it that you just can't put your finger on. Whether it be the ancient look of the film, or the band music that plays after Snakey Bender has given what is owed to those comrads who turn against him due to peer pressure. Also a bonus is Sis, perhaps she looks familiar and for good reasons. Take a peek at Large Marge in Pee-Wee's big adventure and you might notice some similarities. I do. Well its a fun night with Fangs so I would recommend it to you B-Movie fans.

Enough distinctive elements to engage horror genre enthusiasts, but the humorous snake scenes detract from its overall impact

[kevin_robbins · 4/10 · 19 December 2023]

I recently watched Fangs (1974) on Shudder. The storyline follows an old hermit on the outskirts of town who keeps to himself and takes care of his pet snakes. When he's down on his luck and asks for help from the townspeople they turn their backs on him. He decides to use his snakes to go on a killing spree.

Directed by Art Names in his inaugural directorial project, the film stars Les Tremayne (War of the Worlds), Janet Wood (Foul Play), Bebe Kelly (The Streets of San Francisco), and Alice Nunn (Minnie Dearest).

This is a unique movie with a solid villain and premise. The soundtrack, cars, and cinematography authentically capture the era, providing a grindhouse vibe. There are captivating scenes, including some with dancing ladies. However, the snake bite scenes tend to be more comical than thrilling, often featuring characters in tighty whities pretending to be scared of snakes.

In conclusion, Fangs is a mediocre to bad addition to the horror genre. It has enough distinctive elements to engage genre enthusiasts, but the humorous snake scenes detract from its overall impact. I would rate it a 4/10 and recommend a one-time viewing.

Mind destroyer

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 27 October 2021]

Les Tremayne, who was one of the most popular and well-known voices of the Golden Age of Radio, working on shows like The Jackie Gleason/Les Tremayne Show, Ford Theatre, Inner Sanctum, The Whistler and more. He even had a breakfast show with his second wife. As entertainment moved into television, he was all over the dial, as well as showing up in movies like The War of the Worlds, The Monolith Monsters, The Monster of Piedras Blancas, The Fortune Cookie, Forbidden Planet, The Angry Red Planet, King Kong vs. Godzilla and The Slime People. He even played Big Daddy Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard, Dr. Frankenstein on The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and the titlular mentor on Shazam!

None of those roles could have prepared him - or us - for Fangs.

As Snakey Bender, Tremayne plays a man of obsessions, obsession that we as mortal people just may not understand. There's one day a week that he cares about and that's Wednesday. On that day, he makes his journey into town where he visits the attractive schoolteacher Cynthia (Bebe Kelly, If You Don't Stop It... You'll Go Blind!!!), whose students perform the task of hunting down small rodents for him so that his beloved pets - he claims to be part snake by the way - have some food for the week. Then he harasses the general store employees before meeting up with his one true friend, Burt (Richard Kennedy), and they have a concert where they blast the music of John Philip Sousa.

Basically, Snakey is one of those people who seem harmless but if one thing impacts their life's routine, the mental damage will not be visited upon him. No, it will be meted out to everyone in his path.

The first chinks in his armor appear when Brother Joy starts preaching against him, saying that snakes are the devil's animals and that he's making the children play on the left hand path.

And then Burt marries Ivy (Janey Wood, Pamela from Terror at Red Wolf Inn).

Unlike Snakey, Burt realizes that he's old and that if he wants to marry a showgirl who really only cares about his money but will give him the kind of companionship a life of hard work deserves, well, he's going to do it. And sure, the Wednesday concerts will end for awhile, but what's the harm in that?

You can just imagine how Snakey reacts.

Actually, you can't. Because things get worse.

It turns out that that schoolteacher likes having the snakes around because those visits are conjugal. That's right, while Snakey is out with the kids, she's doing whatever one does with a snake in a Biblical way. Her secret gets outed to the general store owners Bud and his lesbian sister Sis, who is played by Alice Nunn, who really has the best cameo of all time as Large Marge in Pee Wee's Big Adventure who start blackmailing her, cutting off Snakey's rodent supply and therefore pushing him on the path to no return.

The weirdest thing about this movie is that it has such a level of scum and sleaze all over it yet has no nudity and little to no violence. Heck, it barely has all that many snakes in it. But what it has is a man who realizes that the world is changing around him and no matter what he does, it keeps moving past him. And people use his snakes as sermons or for pleasure but never really see him as anything other than that old weird man from the desert that lives with all the serpents. Except the kids, and when the kids aren't allowed to see him and hunt vermin, well, I mean, how dare you take away vermin-gathering little ones from an old man ready to explode?

Somehow, Snakey becomes a Bond villain, able to kill people with all manner of objects and traps and, yes, snakes. All along, he told the townspeople how moronic they were and now, he's proving it. You should have let him keep air conducting and marching around the house and paying kids for mice and just let him be. But some people have Hell inside them and you should just keep them on their maze-like path so that they don't solve the riddle inside their head and realize that they'd be better off if they just went and killed you.

Also known as Snakes, Snakelust and the wonderful title Holy Wednesday, this was directed and co-written with John T. Wilson by Art Names, who was mostly a sound man on all sorts of movies, including being the post-production sound guy for The Astrologer, which had to be the kind of experience that destroys your mind. Actually, his sound resume is packed with aberrant films that I adore, such as Alligator; Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker; Savage Streets and The Jesus Trip. He and Wilson also co-wrote Girl in Gold Boots and The Black Klansman, so their partnership wasn't a one and done on the weird writing ability.

By direct, I mean he put the camera down and said action, really. You don't really consider the direction or cinematography in this, but that's the best part of it. It just plays out in front of you, with you as the casual observer to one man's meltdown. He just wants to be alone with his snakes and needs the help of others. And he needs that one night of marching band concerts. I guess it really was too much to ask, huh?

There are weird movies that have been made to be weird and there are weird movies made because someone had a vision that perhaps nobody could ever understand. This would be the latter and that's perfect. My dream is to go back in time and sit in a drive-in where the blockbuster baiting tagline for this movie got some cars in the lot and then this starts playing and people start wondering, "What is this? Who is this for? Why did they make this?"

Movies are awesome, everyone.

Worthy of cult status; Les Tremayne's best film?

[funkyfry · 7/10 · 4 April 2003]

A pretty memorable movie of the animals-killing-people variety, specifically similar to "Willard" in that it stars an aging character actor (in this case, a step down a bit to the level of Les Tremayne, who puts in the only distinguished performance I've seen him give) in a role as a man whose life is unbalanced and who subsequently decides to use his animal friends to exact revenge on those who have wronged him. Yes, this is one of those movies where pretty much everybody is despicable, so that you will cheer when they die, and really the selection of actors, locations, etc. couldn't be better at giving the film an atmosphere of shabby decadence.

Tremayne's character is "Snakey Bender", and he is certainly the most interesting thing about the movie: an aged snake collector who is obsessed with John Philip Souza's music. When the local preacher clamps down on his practice of collecting small animals from the local schoolchildren as bait for his snakes, and his friend gets married to a stripper (thus upsetting his ritual Wednesday night band concert) he goes on the rampage, in the process creating a memorable pile-up of clunkers beneath the cliff where he dumps the wrecks after disposing of their unfortunate owners. One amusing game you can play while watching "Snakes" is to place bets on which cars will land the farthest down the cliff.

All in all, very cheap and exploitative, but will really be a lot of fun for fans of these kinds of movies.

Mayberry snake vengeance

[EyeAskance · 25 December 2003]

The highlight of this undistinguished drive-in vehicle is the unchained ham-on-wheels performance by Les Tremayne as Snakey...an eccentric old codger who enjoys listening to marching band music, scaring the local bratty kids, and occasionally dispatching his pet snakes to rid his little town of its more unsavory denizens.

Enjoyable enough underdog rerun of the WILLARD idea with some uproariously bad dialog, and all the charmingly unextravagant production values we've come to love in regional cinema. Should you run across a copy of this obscurity, give it a whirl with the understanding that a "fun" movie doesn't necessarily need to be a "good" movie.

4/10